Speed Kills
Speed Kills is the eighth episode in season three of . Synopsis A murder investigation takes Horatio and the team into the world of speed dating. Richard Laken is found killed by a tire iron outside a lounge following an evening of speed dating. The team discovers his car is covered with acetone, which traces back to one of the female guests. She reveals that she dated Laken and he dumped her, so she doused his car with nail polish remover for revenge, but she didn't kill him. Now, when Horatio and the team learn that Laken recently witnessed a serious assault at a Miami Heat basketball game, they are on the hunt for two perps instead of one. Plot Richard Laken, an attractive man in his thirties, is participating in a speed dating party. Couples speak for five minutes and then move on to the next person. Richard isn't having a good evening, though. He runs into an ex, Mary Kinnan, who asks him for an explanation for why he never called her. His next speed date, Rebecca Briggs, is irritated when Richard seems distracted. He complains about not feeling well. A few hours later, Horatio and Frank Tripp stand over Richard's body in an alley near the Neuron Lounge, where Richard was speed dating hours earlier. His car has been vandalized, indicating it's a murder of passion. Tripp tells Horatio that Laken was speed dating before he was killed. Calleigh finds Richard's cell phone turned off. Alexx notes that he's been dead at least six hours, as rigor has set in. Calleigh determines the liquid used to vandalize his car may have been acetone, commonly found in nail polish remover. Horatio gets the list of speed daters from the reluctant bar owner. One of the speed daters, Mart Kinnan, is a hairstylist, so the CSIs pay her a visit first. Her ex-husband is angrily moving things out of their house when the CSIs arrive. She says she and Laken met a few months ago and went on a few dates, but that he dumped her supposedly to get back together with his ex. Then she saw him at speed dating and got angry, so she vandalized his car at the break. But she says she didn't kill him; she last saw him run out after the night ended without even turning his scorecard in. Delko checks her story and the acetone evaporation matches what Mary told them. Alexx is performing the autopsy on Laken, and after exchanging a mischievous look, Delko and Calleigh send newbie Ryan Wolfe to observe the autopsy. He keeps his cool until he notices Laken's head has been severed and Alexx is boiling the skin off to get to the skull so that they can determine what kind of weapon he was killed with. Tyler determines that Rebecca Briggs was the last one to sit with Richard Laken. When Horatio questions her, she tells him that she was robbed a little while ago and she knows it was one of the speed dater guys. Instead of calling the police, she went back to speed dating to find the culprit. She thought Richard looked guilty and confronted him about it. Tripp and Horatio go to Rebecca's condo and find a smear near where the entertainment center was. Horatio hopes Valera can get DNA off it. Alexx has boiled down Laken's head to the skull. She sends Ryan to determine what he was killed with. Ryan matches the marks in the skull to a tire iron. He takes the evidence to Delko, who gently teases him about the autopsy and says that Speedle was the one who "hazed" him when he first started. Valera gets DNA from the smear from Rebecca's condo that matches Chad Gilbert. A trip to Chad's apartment uncovers the stolen goods from Rebecca's condo. Chad was also at speed dating and he saw Richard acting strangely before he ran out of the club. Calleigh identifies the speed dater who would have been in Richard's line of sight when he was talking to Rebecca as Jack Smith. But Jack Smith seems to be a dead end: he gave a false address and Rebecca has no memory of him. When Rebecca mentions that Richard said something about a game the night before, Calleigh thinks to check the website of the Miami Heat. She comes up empty until she checks the police reports and learns that Richard was a witness to an assault on player Marcus Washington. One man hit Washington, the other attended to him before they both fled. Richard was the only witness. Horatio visits Marcus in the hospital. Marcus is in a coma, and his mother, Tonya, tells Horatio that Marcus has a cerebral edema. He was attacked because he defended her, but she was busy tending to him and can't remember the attackers' faces. Horatio promises to tell her if he finds out anything. Ryan and Calleigh go over the evidence from Marcus's assault. Ryan gets a piece of rare Kobe beef from a napkin found at the scene, and they trace it to the Solar State Insurance skybox. Stanton Hayes, who signed for it, admits to being there, but he says he tended to Marcus. Jack Webster was the one who hit Marcus, and he's also the "Jack Smith" that Richard spied at the speed dating event. Calleigh determines Richard was probably trying to get outside to use his cell phone to call the police. He turned on his phone at 10:56, right before he was killed. But Jack was still inside. Back at the scene, Calleigh discovers cast stone, which is usually used for construction. That leads the CSIs to Fred Kinnan, Mary's ex-husband, who works in construction. When Delko finds a bloody tire iron in Fred's trunk, they think they've found their man, until they realize that the tire iron doesn't match up with the size of the tires on Fred's car. It does match Mary's though. At first she tries to pin it on Fred, but once she realizes the CSIs are on to her, she admits to killing him when he told her he went to speed dating just to get laid. Horatio visits Tonya Washington to tell her they got the men who attacked her son. He offers to sit with Marcus while she goes to get something to eat. Cast Main Cast * David Caruso as Horatio Caine * Emily Procter as Calleigh Duquesne * Adam Rodríguez as Eric Delko * Jonathan Togo as Ryan Wolfe * Khandi Alexander as Alexx Woods * Sofia Milos as Yelina Salas Guest Cast * Rex Linn as Frank Tripp * Boti Ann Bliss as Maxine Valera * Brian Poth as Tyler Jenson * Mark Devine as Richard Laken * Deborah Zoe as Kelley Sloane * Marcus Chait as Chad Gibbs * Susan Walters as Mary Kinnan * Debi Mazar as Rebecca Briggs * John Ales as Mike Tibbetts * Scott Williams Winters as Fred Kinnan * Vanessa Bell Calloway as Tonya Washington * Bradley White as Stanton Hayes * Steve Cell as Jack Webster Major Events *Ryan witnesses an autopsy for the first time. *Delko reveals that Speed was the one responsible for hazing him when he first joined the team. See Also Category:CSI: Miami Episodes